For all their bantering about the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire being symbolic of “labor’s martyred heroes” (even though no union was involved) we are reminded that, for today’s union bosses and their allies on the Left to ignore the deaths of 97 others caused by union militants speaks volumes about the hypocrisy and shallow callousness embodied by today’s Left.

From Washington to the Midwest, unions are having a rough go of it these days. Residents have taken to the street to help deal with a teachers’ strike in Ohio and the National Labor Relations Board may not get resolved for months…or longer.

The underfunding problem of union multi-employer pension plans continues. With as much as $369 billion in the hole, union pensions have become a ticking time bomb for both employers as well as present and future retirees.

Ultimately, the American taxpayers may be asked, as they were in 2008, to bailout unions’ underfunded pension plans.

Ohio teachers, on strike for a week now, get some help from their Marxist allies; more details emerge about AFSCME’s new contract with Illinois; and Massachusetts’ newest liberal senator, Elizabeth Warren, leads a witness pitching the case for a minimum wage hike–to $22 per hour.

In Friday’s edition of Union Briefs, you were provided with a compilation of the problems surrounding Barack Obama’s then-purported pick to replace Hilda Solis as Secretary of Labor. Since Friday, as expected, the White House has announced that Barack Obama would indeed nominate Thomas Perez to replace Solis. However, as more light is shed on Thomas Perez and his questionable qualifications for Secretary of Labor, | Read More »

When Barack Obama did the bidding of his union bosses by unilaterally declaring the Senate in recess and appointing three members to his National Labor Relations Board, he probably did not realize the fall out to his actions–or perhaps he did.
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Penny Pritzker‘s Hyatt Hotels are being attacked for not succumbing to union demands to eliminate workers’ right to secret-ballot elections, Illinois settles a pension problem (sort of), and the SEIU is in Day Two of its strike at the University of Illinois.

“The Congress that passed the Wagner Act of 1935 contemplated a board of “impartial government employees. That was before Big Labor selected the political process to stem its decline and the Democratic Party as its vehicle of choice. “Now, in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars in political donations, Big Labor demands appointees to the NLRB serve its interests.

None have done so in a more partisan, less compromising, more militant fashion than the members of the Obama board. “

Between Barack Obama’s unconstitutionally ‘recess’-appointed National Labor Relations Board and unions talking about their most current crisis, there’s been a lot occurring on the labor front these days. So, just to keep you informed, here’s a compilation of what’s out there.